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Date Posted: 16:46:50 06/14/05 Tue
Author: TracyJean
Subject: DOALS I - Hands To Heaven 10/10
In reply to: TracyJean 's message, "Drifting On A Lonely Sea Chapter I - Hands To Heaven" on 18:19:27 06/06/05 Mon

Here's the final part of Chapter I. Chapter II will begin tomorrow and will be posted in 23 parts (one of the original parts I wrote was 46 pages in Word!). Since Chapter III is moving along so well, I'll probably post two parts a day of Chapter II.

~*~*~*~

"Before we head out for the real fun," Bud joked, bringing laughs from nearly everyone gathered as they were all pulling on their coats before taking off, the men for a bar for some last minute revelry and the women for quiet evenings at home, Mac having decided weeks earlier that a bachelorette party wasn't her thing, "we all need to remember not to get arrested this time. I don't think my wife would appreciate my having to be bailed out of jail *again* the morning of a wedding." Even Mac managed a smile at that, remembering Harm's call in the wee hours of the morning to bail them all out of jail, the cute look on his face as he and Bud had tried to explain what had happened.

"Too bad I can't just forget all this and spend the time having fun with my future wife," Mic joked.

"Not likely," was the response from just about everyone, in reference to that fact the bride and groom weren’t supposed to see each other before the wedding, while Mac tried to bury her initial knee-jerk reaction. Calm, Marine, she told herself. He's just joking. Mic is always joking like that. It doesn’t mean anything.

Leaning towards Harriet, Mac whispered, "I'll be back in a few minutes." She took off towards the restroom before the other woman could respond. Chloe noticed and exchanged a glance with Harriet.

"We need to go after her," Chloe whispered. Harriet nodded and the two of them headed in the direction Mac had gone. As they entered the restroom, they found Mac bracing herself against one of the sinks, her knuckles bone white as her fingers gripped the porcelain. Chloe was about to motion Harriet back, thinking that Mac wouldn’t appreciate being ganged up on, but changed her mind. Desperate times called for desperate action and it couldn't get much more desperate than this. "Mac, you really need to put a stop to this."

"How many times do I have to tell you," Mac said, not even looking behind her, "that it's not that simple, not anymore? Too many people are going to get hurt now."

"So you'll hurt yourself and the man you really love just to protect two people neither of you love?" Chloe asked. "Unbelievable." She shook her head, wondering what she was supposed to say now. They kept going round and round, covering the same ground. There had to be something that would break this stalemate.

Harriet put her hand on Chloe's arm and nodded towards Mac, indicating that she would try. "Ma'am, do you remember when you got back from Australia, when you first showed me the ring?" she asked. Mac turned around, brushing tears from her eyes, startled by Harriet's presence. She gave Chloe a frustrated glance.

"Mac, listen to her, please?" Chloe begged. "This can't continue, not like this."

When Mac didn't protest, Harriet continued, "You said that you didn't know how it was all going to work out at the time, with you in Washington and Mic in Australia. Do you remember what I told you?"

Mac nodded, taking a shaky breath. "You said that it helps if you're sure," she replied quietly. How many times had those words run through her head the last few days?

"You know, the Commander approached me when I left your office that day," Harriet revealed. Mac's startled gasp at the mention of Harm told Harriet that she was on the right track. Whatever doubts Mac was having, they were tied in with him. "He asked me if you were really thinking about marrying Mic."

"He did?" Mac asked with an almost hopeful tone in her voice. Then she shook her head. "Later that day, he made a comment about how wearing an engagement ring on your right hand didn't mean you were engaged. I asked him if there was anything we needed to talk about and he said no. I thought …."

"What, that he didn't care?" Harriet asked, incredulous. "Ma'am, that couldn't have been further from the truth. Correction, it can't be further from the truth. I've know both of you for nearly five years. He's your best friend …. and maybe more?"

Mac looked like she was about to say something, but stopped herself. "No, not anymore," she insisted, her voice growing angry as she hurriedly brushed away tears. "I'm not doing this anymore. I need to get out of here." Quickly, Mac walked out, leaving two frustrated people behind her.

"I guess it's too much to hope for that she means she's not going through with this farce of a wedding," Chloe sighed, Harriet agreeing with her more now than ever that this wedding should not happen.

When the two of them rejoined the rest of the group, Mac was standing next to Mic, smiling and saying something. They heard just the tail end. " …. so I'm going to head on home and try to get a good night's sleep," Mac said. "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Mic pulled her into his arms and gave her a tender kiss, while Chloe made a gagging motion with her finger that only Harriet saw. "I love you, Sarah," Mic said as he pulled away.

"Yeah," Mac replied, her smile faltering just enough that Harriet and Chloe both caught it. "Me too." She turned to her sister. "Are you ready to go, Chloe?"

"Yes," Chloe replied, glancing at Harriet, who nodded, understanding the unspoken question. Chloe smiled and turned to follow Mac out of the restaurant.

"I'd better head home as well," Harriet said. "I don't want to leave AJ with the babysitter any longer than I have to. I guess I'll see everyone tomorrow."

Harriet gave Bud, who was going to ride with AJ, a kiss and after extracting another promise from him not to get arrested, she left as well. Outside the restaurant, she caught sight of Mac and Chloe standing next to Mac's Corvette, Mac digging through her purse, apparently looking for her keys while Chloe gestured wildly, probably making yet another point about why she thought the wedding shouldn't happen. She had to walk in that direction anyway to get to her minivan, so Harriet told herself that she wouldn't be eavesdropping, not really. She slowed her pace so that she could listen to what they were saying.

"Again, what will it hurt to at least postpone?" Chloe argued. Mac tried to ignore her, growing frustrated. Where the hell were her damn keys? Chloe grabbed the purse from Mac's hands. "I'll look for them." She rifled through the purse herself, pulling out the key ring after a few seconds. "Here they are. Just a second, there's something caught on the ring. Oh …." She ended on a gasp as she recognized the object tangled in with the keys.

"Give them to me and we'll get out of …." Her voice trailed off as she recognized the object sitting on the palm of Chloe's hand. Harriet, slowly walking towards her car, was close enough that she could make out what it was Chloe was holding. Suddenly, Mac's voice got firm and she held out her hand. "Give those to me."

Deliberately misunderstanding her, Chloe handed Mac her keys. Mac held out her hand again, but Chloe shook her head. "I think I'll hang onto these for a while," Chloe said. She turned to Harriet, who stood nearby as if frozen in place. "Can you come by Mac's place after you relieve the babysitter? I'm sure Mac would love to see her godson. And I think Mac could use another woman’s perspective."

Harriet nodded. "I'll meet you there in about forty-five minutes," she said. She studied Mac intently, and then added gently, "Ma'am, I couldn't care for you more if you were family. In a way, you are – you and the Commander both – and I can't stand to see you hurt yourself like this."

After Harriet walked off, Mac turned back to her sister. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"With my help and Harriet's, and with that photo album full of pictures of Harm," Chloe replied, smiling smugly, "we're going to take a walk down memory lane and by the time we're finished, maybe you'll have figured out – or rather admitted - for yourself just why you can't go through with this wedding."

~*~*~*~

MAC'S APARTMENT

"I am so glad you're here, Harriet," Chloe exclaimed as she opened the door to Harriet, who was holding her son in her arms. She reached out and ran her hand over soft blond baby hair. "Hey, AJ."

AJ waved hello, babbling softly as Harriet carried him into the apartment. Harriet set him on the floor and he immediately toddled over to Jingo, who was laying in front of the fireplace, throwing himself against the dog, his arms going around Jingo's neck. "Doggie, doggie."

"Where is she?" Harriet asked, glancing around the apartment as she kept one eye on her son to make sure he didn't bother Jingo too much.

"She just got out of the shower a few minutes ago," she replied. "She should be out in a minute, or I think she will. We haven't exactly talked a lot since we got back here. Harriet, I don’t know what to do anymore. When I got here on Wednesday, I suggested that she talk to Harm before he left for Norfolk. I wonder if that’s where …. by the way, I found something else.” Chloe motioned Harriet over to the closet and opened it, pulling out a hanger and displaying the contents.

“The Commander’s flight jacket,” Harriet said, her eyes immediately drawn to the familiar patch on the left front of the jacket. “I suppose he could have left it here sometime when they were working on a case, but ….”

“He wouldn’t have just left his wings over here,” Chloe pointed out. “I doubt they just fell off his uniform or something. He had to have given them to her.”

“Commander Rabb would never try to force his way between the Colonel and Mic,” Harriet said, thinking out loud. “That’s not him. Maybe the wings are his way of telling the Colonel that she has a choice.”

“Harriet, I just thought of something,” Chloe said excitedly. “I was here the night that Harm stopped by two years ago and told Mac that he was requesting a return to active flight status. I was in the bedroom, but I could hear what they were saying. Mac said that leaving meant that he considered flying to be more important to him than everything, only she paused when she said that last bit, as if that wasn’t what she really wanted to say. I think what she wanted to say that he thought flying was more important than her.”

“It makes sense,” Harriet said. “I’d gone on reserve duty after AJ was born, so I wasn’t around JAG all that much when the Commander had first come back, but from what Bud told me, there was a definite cooling off between them and it seemed to be coming more from the Colonel than from the Commander, as if she was unconsciously trying to punish him for leaving. Then Australia happened and it was the Commander backing off.”

“Because of the ring,” Chloe concluded, “because, like you said, he wouldn’t consciously try to come between Mac and Mic. But now, he’s given her his wings. Maybe he’s saying not just that Mac has a choice, but what if he’s really saying that he doesn’t think that flying is more important than her. Of course, at that point, if it had been me, I would have been calling off this wedding, but ….”

“He said the choice was mine,” a voice said from bedroom doorway. “He said that he wasn’t going to stand in the way of what I want.” Chloe and Harriet looked over to see Mac leaning against the door frame, holding a piece of paper in her hand. “But you’re right about the meaning of the wings. He said that they were his answer to what I’d said about flying being more important to him than everything else.” She glanced down at the letter in her hands, sighed heavily, then walked over and held it out to them.

Harriet hesitated a moment before she took the letter, but she held back from immediately reading it. “Are you sure, Ma’am?” she asked gently. She imagined that whatever was in the letter wasn’t really meant for public consumption. Would Mac someday regret showing this to them?

“Not really,” Mac admitted, sitting down on the couch. “But you two aren’t going to back off, are you? And I told Chloe earlier that there are a lot of things that she doesn’t understand about what’s going on. Things that even I don’t understand and …. and I was there.”

“There?” Chloe questioned as Harriet’s eyes scanned the letter. “What’s that ….” She trailed off when she saw the wide-eyed, startled look on Harriet’s face. She looked over her shoulder and began reading, immediately figuring out just what was in the letter which had startled Harriet so much. “Oh, my God. You know, I had asked Mac yesterday if she’d gotten a chance to talk to Harm as I’d suggest that she do before he left for Norfolk. Harriet, do you know what she told me? She said ‘Not exactly’.” Chloe looked at Mac, who was studying her hands, avoiding looking at the two of them. “I guess I was just asking the wrong question.”

Mac said nothing as AJ toddled over to her, having gotten bored with Jingo, who just wanted to sleep. She lifted him up into her lap and remembered the thrill of watching the precious little boy come into their lives, remembered everything else that had happened that day. She could see it, the grin on his face as they’d watched Bud and Harriet ooh and aah over their son. She could hear it, the laughter in his voice as they’d rejoiced over the miracle they’d just witnessed. She glanced up as she became aware that Chloe was saying something.

“I guess you were right, Mac,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest. She may have been only fourteen, but she could probably give lessons to any Marine about never surrendering her position. “There are things that I don’t understand about this situation, like how you could make love with a man – and not just any man, but the man you really love – just three days before you are supposed to marry someone else and still think that this marriage is the right thing to do. That I definitely do not understand. You’re not going to tell us that this was just an itch or something and now you’ve gotten it out of your system, are you? Because I think it’s obvious from your behavior the last two days that you can’t get it off your mind and I don’t think it’s just because you’re feeling guilty. Of course, that does explain why you lied to Mic yesterday when he wanted to spend time with you. So what happens if you two get married and you can’t make excuses to stay out of his bed?”

“Ma’am,” Harriet began, her voice hesitant, still mindful of the fact that Mac was her superior officer, friend or not. One didn’t just tell their superior how to live their life, even if she was now absolutely positive that said officer was about to make a huge mistake. “There is so much that we don’t know about your relationship with Commander Rabb and with Mic, but I do know that if your heart were really into this marriage, then you wouldn’t even be able to think about another man, let alone, um, sleep with him. Even when I was so mad at Bud that I wanted to call the entire thing off the morning of the wedding, I still couldn’t get him off my mind. I didn’t really need you to tell me how much I loved Bud and wanted to marry him. You just reminded me of what I already knew deep down.” She sat down next to Mac on the couch and put her hand on her shoulder. “So what do you know deep down?”

“I don’t know, Harriet,” Mac whispered, resting her forehead against AJ’s head. “I wish I did. I wish that there were something that would tell me for sure what the right thing to do is. Right now, I feel like I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Either way, people will be hurt.”

Chloe pulled out the photo album from the bookcase, the one she and Mac had looked through the day before, and carried it over to the couch, setting it down on the coffee table before she settled into the arm chair. “Harriet, yesterday Mac was looking through this,” she explained. “Look through it yourself and tell me what you see.”

With a glance at Mac, as if asking for permission, Harriet picked up the album and silently flipped through the pages. Many of the photos she recognized, some she didn’t. She did notice that nearly all of them were from the time before Harm had left for the Patrick Henry. The only ones in the album from after that time were ones from the two JAG Christmas parties since then and one from AJ’s first birthday party last year. Only three photos, in an album full of them, were from the last two years. It was like Harm’s return to flying was a dividing point in their lives – or maybe a wall between the friends they used to be and whatever they were now. “All of them have Commander Rabb in them,” she said, “and they pretty much stop when he left JAG. The last one from before that is AJ’s baptism. There are only three pictures that I recognize as coming from after that time, assuming that these are in chronological order.”

Mac nodded. “Four after that actually,” she corrected her. “I just haven’t put the most recent photo in yet, from AJ’s birthday party this year.”

“Let me ask something,” Chloe said. Mac looked at her, mildly surprised that she would ask for permission first. She tended to just speak her mind; at least she had so far. “What about Mic? Where’s the album full of pictures of him?”

“Well, I haven’t known Mic as long as I have Harm,” Mac explained slowly, as if carefully considering her words before she said them. “And he was in Australia for all those months. I do have pictures of him ….”

“Just not an album full of them,” Chloe pointed out. “Has Mic seen this?” She took Mac’s pointed silence as her answer. “I didn’t think so. It’s obvious from this album that you two have shared a lot, or at least you did before he left.” She flipped to the photo from AJ’s baptism, a professional portrait of Harm and Mac with their godson.

It was Mac’s favorite picture in the entire album. Every time she looked at it, she remembered a promise made which might now never be kept. As the picture had been taken, as she’d looked down at the baby she’d cradled in her arms, she’d imagined that it was her child she’d been holding in her arms, hers and Harm’s, the child they’d promised to create together. Sometimes, looking at the photo, she wondered if Harm might have been thinking the same thing at that moment. But so much had happened in their lives since then and it now seemed to be a painful reminder of what now might never be.

AJ leaned forward in Mac’s lap and pressed his hand against the page. “Unca Harm, Aun’ Mac,” he proclaimed, giggling gleefully.

“You know what I see when I look at this picture?” Chloe asked. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that these were two people in love and that is their child they’re holding. Can you tell me that you’ve never looked at this picture and wondered what it would be like to have Harm’s baby?” Once again, Mac’s silence and the pained look on her face spoke volumes as far as Chloe was concerned.

“So you’ve thought about it,” Chloe stated. “You’ve made love with him. I’m not going to ask you how that was, but I don’t think you’d be quite so bothered by everything if the experience hadn’t lived up to your expectations. So what’s stopping you? It’s obvious from this letter that Harm wants to be with you and if you didn’t want to be with him, you wouldn’t be giving all this a second thought, let alone letting it all consume you. So why can’t you just stand up and tell Mic that you can’t marry him because you’re in love with someone else? Or don’t even tell him that. Just be honest and admit that you don’t love him the way a wife should.”

“As I’ve said before, it’s not ….” Mac began before being interrupted by Chloe.

“That simple,” Chloe finished. “I know. But why? You can’t even say ‘I love you’ to Mic. The most I’ve heard you say is ‘Me, too’ or some nonsense like that. I asked you point blank to say that you love him and you nearly choked on the words. So how can you marry him while Harm’s waiting in the wings, just waiting for you to tell him that you want to be with him?”

“Because …. because,” Mac stammered, unable to think of a reply. How could she answer a question that she didn’t even have a reply to, at least not a reply that she was satisfied with. “How do I even know it’s going to work out with Harm? With Mic, I’m guaranteed of a home, a family someday, security. He loves me. No one can deny that, not even Harm.”

“Mac, there are no guarantees,” Harriet pointed out gently. “I learned that the hard way, with baby Sarah. I never would have thought that could have happened to us, but it did. Anyway, who’s to say that you can’t have those things with Commander Rabb? He’s already told you in his own way that you’re the most important thing in the world to him. He’s even willing to stand by and watch you marry another man if that’s what you tell him that you want. Could you say the same thing about Mic?”

“I ….” she began, unable to get past the first word. “I wanted those things with Harm once, but ….” Suddenly, she exploded, startling Harriet, Chloe and even AJ with the ferocity of her response. “He left! Don’t you get it? He left me! I couldn’t make him stay! Mic talked about leaving but he stayed because of me. Harm couldn’t do the same thing ….” She handed AJ to his mother, then got up and went to stand by the window, watching the rain that was beginning to fall. She felt the tears brimming in her eyes, but refused to give free reign to them. She refused to shed any more tears over Harmon Rabb.

“So what, is this supposed to be some kind of punishment?” Chloe asked incredulously. Finally, she thought, they were seeing the truth revealed. “He may have left, but he came back! He gave you his wings, and I don’t know what else he could have done that would have made more of a statement than that. And you’re going to force him to sit by and watch you marry another man? Are you trying to hurt him as much as he hurt you by leaving? And what did you mean by saying that Mic talked about leaving but you got him to stay?” She held her breath, almost afraid to hear the answer she was nearly positive was coming.

Mac looked back at them, startled, unable to believe that she’d said that. She looked down at the ring on her finger and said haltingly, “When Sergei went MIA, Harm was talking about resigning his commission to go look for him. He was going to leave again. I went over to Mic’s and he was putting on his uniform. He’d called his former CO about reinstating his commission. He said there was nothing keeping him here because he'd lost his job and I still hadn’t made a decision about his proposal and ….”

“That’s around the time you moved the ring over to your left hand,” Harriet realized, a horrible understanding dawning. “You thought Commander Rabb was going to leave and you couldn’t do anything about it. Mic threatened to leave, so you stopped him by agreeing to marry him. My God, Ma’am. Even if Commander Rabb wasn’t a part of this at all, how could you agree to marry a man who basically blackmailed you into a wedding that you weren’t even sure you wanted? If you really wanted this marriage, you would have said ‘yes’ the minute after Mic popped the question, back in Sydney. It never would have taken you ten months and he wouldn’t have had to force your hand like that. How much of you’re moving that ring was to keep Mic from leaving and how much was in response to the fact that you thought Commander Rabb was leaving again?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, staring back out the window again, remembering how she'd taken the ring right after she thought she'd been shot down by Harm. Had she really moved the ring over more because Harm was leaving and she’d been afraid of being alone? “But don’t you see? Harm did leave once; he nearly left a second time. How do I know that won’t happen again? I don’t know if I can take that chance. His leaving was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to endure. I don't think I can do that again.”

“Mac, I don’t know if you can afford not to take that chance,” Chloe interjected, pleading. “Harriet’s right. Even if you had no feelings for Harm whatsoever beyond that of friends, you’re marrying Mic for all the wrong reasons and how do you know that you two won’t end up making each other miserable as a result? Add into the mix how much you love Harm and you’ll make yourself and Harm miserable if you go through with this obviously, but you’ll also make Mic miserable and probably whoever Harm’s with as well, whether it’s the Video Princess or someone else.”

“Mic has given up so much for me,” Mac pointed out, trying to convince herself as well as them. “I can’t just walk away from that.”

“Ma’am, with all due respect,” Harriet said, “you can’t live your life based on what you think you owe Mic. You didn’t ask him to move halfway around the world for you. You didn’t ask him to reserve his commission. He made those choices on his own and he can’t expect recompense from you for that. If you can’t give him what he wants, then it’s up to him to live with the consequences of his choices. Commander Rabb was right, when he agreed to back off and let you make your decision. He can’t make it for you, any more than Mic should have been able to make your decision regarding his marriage proposal and that’s what he did for all intents and purposes. You need to make the decision for yourself and not based on what you think you owe Mic or even what Commander Rabb wants from you. There’s only one person you need to consider when making your decision. You need to make your decision based on what you owe yourself. And above all else, you owe it to yourself to be happy.”

“I ….” Mac began, what she was about to say interrupted by the ringing of the phone. She hesitated, not sure if she had the strength for any more conversation, then walked over to the desk and glanced at the caller ID. It was of no help, stating ‘Out Of Area’. With a heavy sigh, she picked up the phone. Maybe it was just her uncle, calling to wish her luck. “Hello?”

There was silence on the other end of the line. “Hello?” she repeated. “Is anyone there?” She thought she heard something in the background, but couldn’t quite distinguish the sounds, not enough to identify the caller or where the call was coming from. “Hello?”

“Mac,” the person on the other end of the line finally said with a barely detectable sadness evident in the voice. Mac exhaled a shaky breath as she recognized the voice. “It’s me. I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking off within the hour. I will be back in time for the wedding.”

“Speaking of the wedding, Harm,” she said slowly after taking a deep breath, feeling Chloe’s and Harriet’s eyes on her as soon as she said his name, “I have something to tell you.”

~*~*~*~

To be continued tomorrow in Drifting On A Lonely Sea Chapter II - If Tomorrow Never Comes

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